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Claire was a woman of the 1920s. She was born into a wealthy family, with a controlling and abusive father for whom she despised for his narrow-mindedness, arrogance and cruelty.

She was secretly in a romantic relationship with a man named Teddy, of whom her father disapproved for his lack wealth and position. While at a masquerade party with her boyfriend, her father unmasked and openly humiliated him. Frustrated, Teddy left the party. Claire tried to run after him, but her father stopped him and said that she had humiliated "him" rather than the opposite. An argument followed, and soon her father hit her violently. Esme, flashing back to her previous life with her first husband, saved her.